Opening statement:“I thought that the first half was a fabulous game, an unbelievable game, and I’m really proud of my team. (Villanova) came out and hit us with a punch and we really rebounded and came right back at them. That shows tremendous growth for me, and improvement, especially with a young team. I was really happy because it looked like, ‘oh my god, it’s going to be a runaway,’ and that’s what Villanova does. Especially after me watching it over and over in the DePaul game. DePaul is receiving votes, has been a top-25 team and Villanova just beat them three nights ago by 20. For DePaul to only score 40-something points is incredible.

This is a team that holds teams to 48 points or under, usually in the low 40s, and so for us to score 52 points, I thought that was really good for us. We outrebounded them and I thought that was important. I thought that, in the second half, the five threes they made—that’s what did us in, and that’s what killed our spirit. We didn’t come back from that. They were five-for-five at that point and then they missed the rest of them. This is a team (Villanova) that made 284 straight threes since 2004. They have not had a game without a three. We knew they were going to have threes. That’s what they do. They spread you out, and they play a very unorthodox or non-traditional type of game. I will be honest, during the night last night and the night before I was dreaming of back-pick flares, slice cuts and slips. I’m happy that’s over. I don’t know another team that does it. I felt very confident in this game. I thought we had a great game plan, we worked on it the best that we could, and it’s just a really tough type of offense to play against. When it works, it’s really pretty.”

On the Panthers keeping the game within reach:“I can honestly say I was never so excited for a game like this, even though I hate playing Villanova. To me, playing Villanova is like getting a root canal. I am so confident and I enjoy this team so much, and we are getting better. And, again, last year we were the youngest team in the nation and this year we’re the fifth youngest. I think if there was not the want, or there was this mentality of, ‘oh, we lost again,’ we would’ve got killed. And you know what? That didn’t happen. But it’s over. You mourn and you move on.”

On getting back in to the game in the first half: “It felt great. We know they were going to make threes. It’s just how we react to it, how we bounce back. It was very important to this game.”

On staying motivated without getting wins in conference games: “We just have to get better. We work so hard in practice and we don’t want to take this loss, but you just have to get back at it in practice. Just move on.”

On what the mindset was after falling behind early:“Our mindset was just to keep playing hard. We knew that they were going to come out and we knew that we were going to get caught on a couple of the back pick flares and a couple of the slips. Once we realized that we kind of got caught sleeping a little bit, then we really started playing defense, really started defending the three ball in the first half. We started just running our plays which is what we needed to do.”

On if she can see a difference between this year and last year:“Definitely, definitely. Our team chemistry is so much better. We already have our feet wet from last year. We know what it’s like. We know this is a game of runs, especially in the Big East. You figure someone hits two three’s and they’re up six, but you come down and make four two’s. Now you’re up. It all depends on how well you come back and I thought we came back really well.”

On staying motivated having not win in conference play over past 20-league showings: “The good thing is that once there’s a loss, there’s always another game afterwards. So we take this loss, look at what we did wrong, fix what we did wrong, go on to the next game and not make the same mistakes.”

On if the scoring done by Villanova inside was good offensive execution or defensive breakdowns:“I think it was honestly a little bit of both. Communication is key in any sport you play and I feel like we work a lot on communicating, but we need to keep working on it as well. Communicating more, that will help us there when it comes to around the basket.”

On staying motivated without getting wins in conference games: “We’re just going to have to bounce back and play hard. We practice hard and play hard. Yeah, it’s been awhile since we got a win, but that doesn’t defeat us at all. We love this game and we’re going to play hard every time.”